The Symptoms of Bipolar Disorder

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Bipolar disorder, which is also called manic-depression, is a term used to define forms of irregular and intense mood swings that can make someone be depressed one day and a complete maniac the next. Unlike other medical conditions, bipolar disorder does not only affect one’s life, but it can also have an impact on other individuals. The extreme mood swings can have a major consequence on someone’s social life and cause one to fail in his or her career or education. Even though bipolar is not the immense discussion in medical disorders; it is still a dangerous condition that affects a multitude of individuals in the world. Many suffer severe symptoms and dangers but they can still live a satisfying life with treatments and therapy. The symptoms of bipolar disease are what make up the whole disorder. The two main symptoms are the maniac phase and the depression phase. Both can be very critical and have major effects on one’s life. The maniac phase causes one to have extremely high energy. Lots of people have high energy but the author Bloch says, “There is a profound contrast between high energy and having bipolar disorder. And there are easy ways of telling the difference” (Bloch 4). Part of the maniac phase is having rapid speech and almost talking nonsense. Obviously this is not a serious effect but it is the start of the life threatening ones. People that are bipolar also become overly confident and start acting in unusual ways. One might start spending money that he or she does not have and gamble excessively. The biggest problem of the maniac phase is the Booz 2 hallucinations that one can experience. These hallucinations can make someone think something is happening when it really is not. This dangers the human that is bi... ... middle of paper ... ...ype of drug is a mood stabilizer and there are many different drugs that perform as this. A mood stabilizer is something that will prevent episodes from happening. It will decrease the effects of the mania phase and even decrease the effects of the depression phase. Lithium is a very affective mood stabilizer and can even prevent the risk of death by suicide. These mood stabilizers work well for treating bipolar disorder but there are side effects as well. Most of the side effects are physical, but can be very dangerous. Loss of energy is a large part of the side effects but is not the only one. Liver damage, pancreas inflammation, seizures, and many other physical disadvantages of the medication occur in the side effects. Medication is an important factor of treating bipolar disorder, on the other hand therapy is a healthier way that also works extremely well.

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